On
page 240 of Striptease (Oxford University
Press, 2004) author Rachel Shteir wrote
"Buddy Wade's tap shoes caught fire, the sparks
igniting her costume, and she burned to death one
night at the Old Howard in Boston." Ms.
Shteir is unable to recall the source of this
story, cannot find her notes of the interview, nor
remember the date the fire is alleged to have
occurred. I got curious if such a sequence
of events was even possible, and have suggested
the story to the Mythbusters
with the hope that they will prove - or disprove -
its viability. Meanwhile, if you have any
knowledge of Buddy Wade or this fire, please email me
today.

Old
Howard article

A recent eBay
purchase was this issue of Cavalier, a "men's
magazine" that was a direct competitor to
Playboy. Like Playboy, Cavalier featured
articles from well-known writers and performers
(this issue featured pieces from Mort Sahl and the
late Ernie Kovacs) and, of course, "picture essays"
featuring unclad beauties of the day. This
issue, from November 1962, includes a lengthy
article on the Old Howard, which is reprinted here,
in its entirety:

For
generations of not-so-staid Bostonians, Harvard
students, and such visiting greats as Justice Oliver
Wendell Holmes, there was "Always Something Doing
from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m." at the Old Howard Burlesque.

By
FRANKLIN L. THISTLE

Never
again will the curtain rise at Boston's famed Old
Howard Theatre. Renowned as America's oldest and
best-loved playhouse where Nineteenth Century
theatrical greats and Twentieth Century strip-tease
stars once performed, the Howard exited not in a blaze
of show business glory, but in an inglorious blaze of
name.

The
end came on June 20, 1961, when a fire of undetermined
origin broke out inside the hallowed halls of the then
silent Old Howard. As thousands watched, firemen
brought the blaze under control within an hour. But by
then the interior of the 116-year-old structure was a
mass of charred timbers. The Old Howard was best known
for its burlesque shows. Ever since 1928, when
burlesque invaded the grimy edifice just a garter's
toss from honky-tonk Scollay Square and turned it into
a strip-tease Mecca, Burlesque was to the Old Howard
what the bean and the cod are to Bostonians. The
Brahmin side of Beacon Hill always felt somewhat
uneasy that the Old Howard was located in the heart of
their fair city.

But
less proper Bostonians were delighted that such a "den
of iniquity" should exist in their puritanical home
town and took a secret pride in the infamous
institution. The Old Howard was known through-out the
world as America's liveliest palace of peel, the word
being spread by thousands of WW II servicemen. But the
Howard was more than just a home for servicemen away
from home. It was a risqué refuge for the callow
college boy; a place where Boston bums (or blue
bloods) could sleep all day without fear of
interruption; and a haven where businessmen and
politicians could temporarily forget their worries.

The
long lines waiting to gain admission often included
touring United Nations delegates, government
officials, civic leaders, college professors, and
other distinguished individuals. And whether the
patrons were important or unimportant, young or old,
blueblood or red-blooded, they were seldom
disappointed with the show.

Except
on rare occasions the Old Howard always lived up to
its motto of “Always Something Doing from 9 am to 11
pm. Six days a week, eleven months on the theater's
creaky stage a succession of blondes, brunette,
redheads performed arresting anatomical antics while
stripping down to as little as the law would allow –
and sometimes less. Sandwiched between the strip acts
were the baggy pants comedians whose banter was
usually fully as their pants.

To
many it seemed paradoxical that the Old Howard could
exist in the staid Hub of New England, where censors
thought nothing of blue-penciling the scripts of
movies and legitimate plays and banning books with the
least provocation. But the city fathers didn’t see the
paradox for many years. They reasoned that minors
couldn't be corrupted because admission was denied
youths under 18 and that everyone who attended the Old
Howard knew in advance what he was going to see;
whereas there was no minimum age for admission to
legitimate theatres and movie houses.

While
it was true that everyone knew in advance what he
would see at the Howard (the only thing that changed
at the Howard were the faces, the jokes and the strip
routines remained monotonously the same) it wasn't
true that youngsters under eighteen were denied
admittance. As a rule the balcony was packed with
self-conscious, fuzzy-cheeked students of nature.

Whether
or not the entertainment at the Old Howard was
damaging to public morals is debatable. But during its
heyday in the '30s and '40s the opinion of those in
authority, for the most part, was that it was not.

In
1947, Boston Mayor John B. Hynes told a Variety Club
luncheon honoring Rufus "Al" Somerby, owner and
operator tor of the Old Howard, for his 50 years in
show business: "Boston is not puritanical town. We
like real entertainment. And that's what Al Somerby
has been giving us. Al has been a credit to our city
for a great many years.” Other tributes paid Somerby
at that lunch included congratulatory wires from the
state’s two U. S. senators, Leverett Saltonstall and
Henry Cabot Lodge.

Strangely
enough the Old Howard in its heyday enjoyed more
official sanction that it -did as a legitimate theatre
presenting Shakespeare and other classics over a
century ago. In those days Boston burghers considered
any theatre an instrument of the devil. For that
reason, the great gray Gothic edifice was purposely
built to resemble a church. Many visitors to the
theatre in later years came away, after seeing the
three tall, stained-glass windows in front, with the
impression that it had been a church.

Christened
the Ho ward Athenaeum in the hope that it would be
mistaken for an educational or cultural institution
rather than a theatre, the building opened on October
13, 1845, with the showing of Sheridan's The School
for Scandal.

For
the next 30 years the best names of the theatre were
hilled at the Howard Athenaeum. Junius Brutus-Booth
played Hamlet there many times. His three sons, J. B.,
Jr., Edwin, and John Wilkes (the man who shot Lincoln)
also appeared, as did Sarah Bernhardt, the most
popular actress of- the era.

Interest
in legitimate drama began to wane by 1870 and
melodrama and variety shows became the Howard's main
bill of fare. Crowds Hocked to see jugglers, acrobats
magicians, and boxing and wrestling exhibitions. John
L Sullivan, at the height of his career as heavyweight
champion, was the first fighter to appear. He was
followed by James J. Corbett, Jack Dempsey, Jack
Johnson, Jim Jeffries and Bob Fitzsimmons.

With
the advent of cheaper entertainment, profits rose.
During this period the Howard Athenaeum became known
simply as the Old Howard. Dr. G. E. Lothrop, one of
Boston's greatest showmen, bought the theatre at the
turn of the century. Under his management the
theatre's burlesque era was ushered in.

Since
before the turn of the century, the Howard had
featured a bevy of pretty girls clad in tights who
sang and danced. But it was not until 1928 that the
strip tease as it is practiced today made its debut at
the Howard and became the piece de resistance of the
theatre's burlesque shows.

The
all-time queen of Old Howard strippers was Ann Corio
who played there on and off for over a decade before
leaving` burlesque for the legitimate drama and the
movies. She seldom failed to fill all the theatre's
1,360 seats.

Once
Ann revealed the secret of her success: "Make yourself
as feminine as possible. Go in for a lot of frills,
furs, and Fumes and parasols, and don't take off your
panties. It makes a girl's figure prettier to have
them on."

Boston's
blue nosed Watch and Ward Society, however, was of the
opinion that even the Howard strippers who kept 'their
panties on were capable of corrupting public morals.
The society came to this conclusion after sending
three members to the Howard in 1933 to investigate the
wicked goings-on. The trio complained about the
"sinuosity of dancing" at the Howard, the girls'
"diaphanous" coverings, and of one stripper who "did
not hesitate to display a mobile abdomen." They also
alleged the comic skits were objectionable and
demanded that the police take appropriate action.

Old
Howard boss Al Somerby heatedly denied the charges as
did Ann Corio. Declared Ann, "My work is art. If the
public considers me beautiful enough to look at, I
fail to see what is wrong.”

So
controversial did the issue become that Mayor James
Michael Curley himself paid a visit to the Howard "to
acquaint myself with the type of amusement offered"
Curley sat through an entire performance, `but refused
public comment on the show other than to say, "They
had a full house, but all, of the people there seemed
to come from Maine, New Hampshire,' and Vermont."

Undoubtedly,
Curley's reluctance to take a firm stand on the matter
was because he didn't want to risk losing the good
will of any of his constituents. Nevertheless, the
Howard's license was revoked for 30 days.

About
10,000 tickets were sold at the Howard each week, with
$1.10 top for evening shows and 60 cents for the
matinees. For this price patrons not only got a long
burlesque show, but also two feature motion pictures
and several short films. An entire program usually ran
over five hours.

Another
"feature" at all the Howard shows was the hawking of
soft drinks, ice cream, art magazines, and novelties
during intermissions. But pitchmen at the Old Howard
refrained from high pressure techniques employed at
most burlesque houses and practiced a "softer sell."

"Mr.
Somerby insisted that we talk for only six minutes at
each appearance," recalls Lester Rosen, No. 1 pitchman
at the Howard for years. "In the old days in Brooklyn,
we used to pitch for twenty and thirty minutes. In
Boston we carried no shoddy novelties, gave no
worthless prizes, and we never resorted to such" old
burlesque tricks as turning, up the heat to sell more
drinks and ice cream on a slow night. Boston audiences
were very high class. We didn't insult their
intelligence.'

Comics
at the Old Howard, however, loved to insult the
intelligence of Bostonians as well as out-of-towners.
Most of them got away with it and went on to greater
glory. In fact, many of the' country's most successful
comedians were launched into Broadway or Hollywood
orbit from the Old Howard stage. Among Old Howard
alumni are Phil Silvers, Bert Lahr, Abbott and
CosteIIo, Harrigan and Hart, Gus Williams, Fanny
Brice, Bobby Clark, Joe Penner, and Weber and Fields.

While
serving their apprenticeships on the Howard stage all
the aforementioned top comics had to take second
billing. The G-string set always got top billing
strippers like Margie Hart, Gypsy Rose Lee, Georgia
Sothern, Hinda Wassau, Vickie Welles, Winnie Garrett,
and Lin St. Cyr. The daring disrobing of these damsels
lured just about every Boston male past puberty to the
Old Howard at one time or another and made eyes pop as
they paraded their charms. Many patrons preferred to
catch the early show Monday before the censor had a
chance to cut it.

College
students invariably comprised a sizeable segment of
Howard audiences with Harvard nun usually
predominating. A popular quip around Harvard Yard was
"that Harvard curriculum include Howard Athenaeum I,
II, III, and IV," and it was attributed to virtually
every good-natured Harvard professor, including the
late Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, a
self confessed Old Howard devotee. When a Howard
comedian told an unusually vulgar joke during one of
his visits, Holmes is reported to have observed "Thank
God lam a man of low taste!"

Not
infrequently did Harvard students spy professors at
the Old Howard. Once a group of Harvard students
spotted their Latin instructor sitting directly in
front of them. As the horseplay on the stage became
more and more uncouth, the instructor noted the
presence of his students. Immediately he established a
lasting reputation for savoir-faire. Waving a hand
toward some particularly libidinous stage business, he
remarked nonchalantly, "The whole thing is straight
out of Plautus and Terence."

Much
of the fact and fancy circulated about the Old Howard
can be attributed to `the late Fred Doherty, the
theatre's press agent for more than 30 years. A short,
fat man, Doherty was best known as the writer of the
Howard ads, which contained some of the quaintest
prose Bostonians had ever read. So compelling were his
ads that they were regularly read every week, even by
persons who had no intention of visiting the Howard.
The copy Doherty once prepared on Ann Corio furnishes
a typical example of his unbridled style:

"When we slide
you the heated vapor that Ann Corio trips here at the
Old Howard, we've tooted something worthwhile to every
regular scout. The most beautiful girl on the stage
will give the wisenheimers a merry marathon. Here
comes the peachiest peach in the ~game, and the babe
with the perpetual smile will deliver the material
that gathers the glances from pit to dome."

Ann
did all that and more. She brought women customers to
the Old Howard for the first time when she made her
Howard debut in 1929. So many women came, accompanied
by husbands or boyfriends, to give Ann the once-over
that the management later held a special midnight show
for ladies-with or without escort. The house was a
sellout. In later years women often composed as much
as a third of the audience at an evening show.

Ranking
second to Ann Corio as the favorite Old Howard
burlesque queen was Rose La Rose, known as the bad
girl of burlesque because of her uninhibited behavior~
on stage. "There's no place like the Old Howard," Rose
once said. "The building is old and it has some
inconveniences, but I love it. In the winter it's
drafty, and there's no running water in the dressing
rooms. But I try out every new act there. The Old
Howard's my barometer. If an act clicks here, it will
go over big on the circuit."

As
luck would have it, Rose's torrid torso-tossing was
instrumental in the closing of the Old Howard. Rose
and sister strippers Marion Russell and Irma "The
Body" Mare were playing the Howard in 1953 when the
authorities decided to crack down. During their
performances, detectives filmed the over-exposed
proceedings by using infrared film and shooting
through the button holes in their topcoats.

The
film, shown in court, plus transcriptions of dialogue,
provided police with sufficient evidence to close the
theatre forever. Many Bostonians protested the
shutdown of the Old Howard. Among those who did was a
Boston pastor. "The filth in burlesque is governed by
the' minds of men," he declared. But the pleas were of
no avail. The Old Howard was never reopened.

In
all probability, if the police hadn't stepped in, the
Howard would have closed anyway.The steady
customers, who had once found the Howard shows
entertaining, had generally ceased to patronize the
place.There
was no longer any wit in the shows; what had been
amusing had degenerated into something despicable and
dull.

To
hold attention, the comics became bluer and bluer,
dirtier and dirtier. During the late 19406, the Howard
put on what was probably the dingiest show to be found
outside the purlieus of Port Said or Havana.The decline
of American burlesque from a family entertainment into
sordid cavalcade of idiotic nudity and smutty jokes
transpired on its proscenium.

After
the Howard was closed, it stood practically forgotten
until the city took over the property in 1989 and
scheduled it for demolition to make way for a new
government center. Soon afterwards the Howard National
Theatre and Museum Committee was organized and began a
campaign to save the theatre. The leader of the group
was Dean Gitter, a Cambridge folksinger and actor.The most
active member was Ann Corio, who many felt was more
interested in personal publicity than the Howard's
fate. Only
the week before the fire Ann had inspected the
shuttered house for publicity purposes.

The
aim of the committee was to convert the Old Howard
into a national theatre shrine where opera and
plays-not burlesque could be presented. The shrine was
envisaged as a civic center of the performing arts
within the government center projected for the area.
The committee was preparing to launch a nationwide
fund-raising drive for $1,000,000 when the fire broke
out.

Since
only the interior was burned, the theatre could have
been restored had `not a city wrecking crew broken
down its granite walls several hours after the fire.
This seemingly hasty action was sharply criticized by
Dean Gitter. He charged it was "incredible" that the
famed building should be swept by an "accidental" fire
just when its restoration was nearly assured.

Although
the committee took its aim seriously, many people
laughed at the idea, and you couldn't blame them much.
In its later days, the Old Howard had become a symbol
of wickedness. The idea of saving and restoring it as
a national shrine sounded a little silly-if you didn't
know the whole story.

As
Boston columnist Elliott Norton put it: "What Dean
Gitter and others of his committee had in mind in
their drive to save the Howard theatre was its remote
past, which was-attractive, and its future, which
might have been honorable. As the oldest standing
playhouse in the United States, the Howard could have
been made into a distinguished attraction for
tourists.Its
walls, which hasty city workers, rushed to knock down
after the fire - for some unexplained reason – were of
the same durable granite which is in the Bunker Hill
monument. Although the interior was grimy, it was
basically beautiful.

"To
have restored it would have cost a comparatively small
amount.As
one of Boston's few remaining Nineteenth Century
buildings of distinction, it would have given the new
government center a special kind of appeal to
visitors. It could have been fitted up handsomely for
plays, opera, and ballet. Nobody had any intention of
turning the theatre back to burlesque. The Gitter
committee remembered that it was built as a playhouse
and, in its day, had served with distinction as
Boston's first opera house. Even after the fire, it
might have been salvaged and reasonably restored. But
the city's wreckers, who are not interested in theatre
of any kind, put a final end to it. Why they should
have done so is a mystery with political rather than
theatrical overtones."

Probably
the most poignant tribute paid the Old Howard upon its
passing was written by Robert Taylor of the Boston
Herald. Wrote Taylor: "The Old Howard departed from
the life of Boston and entered America's theatrical
past at noon Tuesday, June 20, 1961. It was not even
150 years old, barely past its centennial, in fact;
and yet seemed much older because of active service.
The exit was as spectacular as a Viking's funeral; a
curtain in the grand manner. Something about The
Howard always retained the grand manner, like a
dowager actress who had experienced heights of glory
as intoxicating as her later decline.

"Characteristically,
in the three-alarm fire that destroyed The Old Howard,
everyone was amused but hardly anyone was hurt. The
blaze had the character of a gesture. Every gesture
the playhouse ever contrived, held charm.

"Then,
too, there was the loveliness of the building. The
cigar smoke that frescoed the ceiling, the mottled
paint, and spattered cuspidors did not conceal the
intrinsic grace of The OM Howard's architecture.

"Ann
Corio, one of the better performers to appear at the
house during the twilight years, said after the fire
that the theatre was "a valentine.'She was
right, of course. It had the fragile and pastel style
of a place dedicated to the essentials of the stage.
Not a building designed to allow the ultimate in sight
lines, to enable players to be heard better, to permit
the manipulation of sets, but to create illusion. When
you walked into The Old Howard, you were not
substituting the environment of one part of prosaic
everyday life for another; you were in a theatre with
all its illusion and enchantment.

"That's
why we wish, in a way, that the Howard might have been
saved.The
committee striving for its preservation comprised
people of both taste and common sense. Yet who knows
how, in spite of their enthusiasm, the enterprise may
have tuned out? The theatre's daemon its spirit, may
not have taken kindly to its existence as an inert,
echoing museum.

"In
any
case, the theater of the Booths and of the clowns and
the strippers has burned and it is never a happy
occasion when a theater dies, even as a ghost of
itself.The
memories survive and they are as immortal as stage
memories can be.We shall sing no sad songs, for, while it
lasted, there was always something doing at The Howard
Athenaeum from 9 am to 11 pm.”